Letter writing is said to be a dying art. But an online archive of
illuminating correspondence is keeping it alive. Shaun Usher, founder of
Letters of Note, explains

In 2009 I was earning a living as a freelance copywriter, a demanding role that involved writing for a diverse cluster of clients, ranging from window fitters to travel agents. It’s very possible I simply wasn’t cut out for the job, but I challenge anyone to write a snappy advert for an office furniture retailer every month, for two years, and still be producing anything close to gold at the end.

An assignment from a stationery retailer didn’t, at first, appear much better: they wanted an article related to writing paraphernalia for their website. But then I had an idea: what if I put something together about famous letters from history? I started trawling through books, visiting local museums and exhibitions and navigating various online archives, looking for examples of interesting correspondence, and, within a few days, I’d found so many fascinating documents – letters, memos, telegrams – that I was hooked. I’d also become convinced, during my research, that they would make a great subject for a website – an online collection of letters of the kind that are now, in this paperless age of email, deemed old-fashioned. As a result, I never wrote that article, but within a few days my blog,Letters of Note, was launched.

Since then, more than 70 million people have visited the site. The first entry was a 1938 rejection letter fromDisney to a woman who wanted to be an animator, but was told to instead apply for a tracing job as “women do not do any of the creative work”; the most recent featured is a tantalising letter from the producer of A Clockwork Orange in which he proposes Mick Jagger for the central role of Alex, with a soundtrack by the Beatles. In between we have everything from Virginia Woolf’s deeply moving suicide note to her husband during an unbearable period of mental illness (“I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer”), to Queen Elizabeth II’s letter to President Eisenhower in which she passes on her personal recipe for scones. Many, such as Gandhi’s typewritten plea for peace to Hitler and Iggy Pop’s tender letter of advice to a troubled young fan, are also accompanied by images of the original documents.

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A telegram to President Roosevelt from John Steinbeck and 35 other writers (Courtesy of National Archives)

To find these oft-forgotten gems, I spend my days trawling archives, museums and dusty oldbooks, but there are also an increasing number submitted by readers. The varieties of correspondence on show are wide-ranging: there are tender declarations of love, grovelling apologies, elegant job applications and artfully furious rants. Reading a random selection of 10 will probably cause you to laugh, cry, wince and shudder in an impossibly short space of time. And they span a huge period, with the oldest having been imprinted in clay in the 14th century BC and the most recent still only a few years old. Some offer precious glimpses of otherwise guarded individuals, others provide a revealing front-seat view of a previously unrelatable historical event. Last year, close to three million people visited the site in one 24-hour period specifically to read a piece of correspondence from 1865 sent by a freed slave to his “old master” , written in response to a laughable request to return to work.

Jourdon Anderson’s rousing, defiant reply could easily have been plucked from a Hollywood screenplay, and when I first found and read a copy I was as close to actually punching the air as I have ever been. It is letters like this which make the project so rewarding and account for the enthusiastic mail I receive from around the globe; enough, in fact, to fill its own website.

So, what does the future hold? It is of course impossible to know until our generation’s letters are published, or not, as the case may be, and given the ubiquity of email, text messaging and Twitter, the chances are slim. But I do truly hope that people are still composing, with ink and paper, the kind of missives that may charm and captivate our grandchildren in 50 years’ time.

‘We no longer have any right to remain silent’

36 AMERICAN WRITERS to US PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT November 16 1938

In November 1938, millions looked on in shock as thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were looted, trashed and burnt to the ground in Germany during a coordinated series of attacks – known as pogroms – which left more than 90 Jews dead and many, many more in concentration camps. Worldwide condemnation was swift and on the 16th of that month, less than a week after what was dubbed Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”), a star-studded and angry collective of 36 American writers, including John Steinbeck and Dorothy Parker, sent a strongly worded telegram (above) to President Franklin D Roosevelt urging him to cut all ties with Nazi Germany.

Bette Davis and her daughter B D Hyman (Courtesy of CMG Worldwide)

‘It’s up to you now’

BETTE DAVIS to B D HYMAN 1987

In 1983, at the end of an amazing career during which she was nominated for a then record-breaking 10 Academy Awards for acting, two of which she won, legendary Hollywood actress Bette Davis was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgery followed, as did a number of strokes which left her partially paralysed. Then, in 1985, her daughter Barbara released a controversial book titled My Mother’s Keeper, which exposed their supposedly troubled relationship and generally painted Davis in a terrible light. Two years later, Davis published her memoirs – at the very end was this letter to her daughter.

Dear Hyman,

You ended your book with a letter to me. I have decided to do the same.

There is no doubt you have a great potential as a writer of fiction. You have always been a great storyteller. I have often, lo these many years, said to you, “BD, that is not the way it was. You are imagining things.”

Many of the scenes in your book I have played on the screen. It could be you have confused the “me” on the screen with “me” who is your mother.

I have violent objections to your quotes of mine regarding actors I have worked with. For the most part, you have cruelly misquoted me. Ustinov I was thrilled to work with and I have great admiration of him as a person and as an actor.

You have stated correctly my reactions to working with Faye Dunaway. She was a most exasperating co-star. But to quote me as having said Sir Laurence Olivier was not a good actor is most certainly one of the figments of your imagination. Few actors have ever reached the towering heights of his performances.

You constantly inform people that you wrote this book to help me understand you and your way of life better. Your goal was not reached. I am now utterly confused as to who you are or what your way of life is.

The sum total of your having written this book is a glaring lack of loyalty and thanks for the very privileged life I feel you have been given.

In one of your many interviews while publicising your book, you said if you sell your book to TV you feel Glenda Jackson should play me. I would hope you would be courteous enough to ask me to play myself.

I have much to quarrel about in your book. I choose to ignore most of it. But not the pathetic creature you claim I have been because of the fact that I did not play Scarlett in Gone With the Wind. I could have, but turned it down. Mr Selznick attempted to get permission from my boss, Jack Warner, to borrow Errol Flynn and Bette Davis to play Rhett Butler and Scarlett. I refused because I felt Errol was not good casting for Rhett. At that time only Clark Gable was right. Therefore, dear Hyman, send me not back to Tara, rather send me back to Witch Way, our home on the beautiful coast of Maine where once lived a beautiful human being by the name of BD, not Hyman.

As you ended your letter in My Mother’s Keeper – it’s up to you now, Ruth Elizabeth – I am ending my letter to you the same way: It’s up to you now, Hyman.

Ruth Elizabeth

P.S. I hope someday I will understand the title My Mother’s Keeper. If it refers to money, if my memory serves me right, I’ve been your keeper all these many years. I am continuing to do so, as my name has made your book about me a success.

In February 1978, just a few weeks before filmingwas to start on Monty Python’s Life of Brian, EMI Films unexpectedly withdrew all financial backing after its board’s chairman, Lord Bernard Delfont, glanced at the “obscene and sacrilegious” script for the first time. This panicked memo, sent by Delfont to EMI’s Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings, perfectly captures his horrified reaction. Luckily, the Monty Python team found an incredibly keen new backer in Beatles’ guitarist George Harrison, who even mortgaged his house to finance what was ultimately a great investment. As for Delfont, his last-minute decision to jump ship lives on in the film itself, the very last lines of which are as follows:

“Who do you think pays for all this rubbish? They’re not gonna make their money back; you know, I told them, I said to them, ‘Bernie,’ I said, ‘they’ll never make their money back.’”